


i found love where it wasn't supposed to be: right in front of me

by fracturedvaels



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, M/M, Mental Illness, meta through relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4866416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracturedvaels/pseuds/fracturedvaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loving Josh is this:</p><p>It is waking up at 3 a.m. to his side of the bed messy and cold. The lamp fell over when he got up, things tumbled off the side table; and the television is on, and the bathroom door is open, and a hall closet. It is going to the kitchen, the second bathroom, the living room, the second bedroom; it is righting lamps and cushions and cutlery and laundry baskets and finding him in the laundry room wedged into the smallest corner, bloodied knuckles folded over his head like he's protecting himself from an earthquake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i found love where it wasn't supposed to be: right in front of me

**Author's Note:**

> ftr, this operates under the idea that under all those layers, chris is chubby. chubby chris gives me life, thank you, kisses.

Loving Josh is this:

It is waking up at 3 a.m. to his side of the bed messy and cold. The lamp fell over when he got up, things tumbled off the side table; and the television is on, and the bathroom door is open, and a hall closet. It is going to the kitchen, the second bathroom, the living room, the second bedroom; it is righting lamps and cushions and cutlery and laundry baskets and finding him in the laundry room wedged into the smallest corner, bloodied knuckles folded over his head like he's protecting himself from an earthquake.

Loving Josh is this:

It is taking him back to the bedroom after cleaning his knuckles. Josh folds into Chris' arms like he's pipe cleaner bones and dough-soft flesh, but the angles of his ribs and his elbows and the harsh cut of his collarbones make him feel like a pillow stuffed with knives.

Chris holds him tighter and feels the pressure in his own soft skin. Josh is so cold with too-thin fingers, and he has the habit of clinging and pressing icy palms to the fleshiest parts of Chris' sides and ribs. Chris is patient, and Chris is understanding, and he doesn't complain and barely flinches anymore because he knows Josh loves the softness he finds there and how Chris is all thick flesh between skin and bone.

And there are days of frantic phone calls from the neighbors, returning hastily from the store to find the bath tub has overflowed again. There's blood on the porcelain sink, and Josh tries to wipe tears from his face with his busted hand and just smears blood there. It leaves a sick swipe across his cheek as Chris walks him from living room to smaller bathroom, just to clean his hand, to hear him crying and apologizing because he just wanted to clean himself up and then he fell asleep and left the tub running.

Loving Josh is Chris kissing his forehead and promising him it's okay before he goes to deal with the neighbors and has to phone for repairs. Loving Josh is paying out of pocket so his parents don't worry. Because money isn't tight, and they can live beyond comfortably, but it's the stress and the time and the waiting and having to shower in Mrs. Cranston's apartment until theirs is fixed. It's fourteen _thank you_ and _our apologies_ cards written and stuffed with gift cards.

Loving Josh is lying to him. _I have to visit my aunt_ , he says, and he feels like he should be eating knives. It's letting Mike have a spare key to see him, it's letting Sam stay in the apartment to watch him, it's letting Emily visit to cook for him because he can't feed himself, he's so nervous and afraid Chris won't come back, like Hannah and Beth didn't come back, like his mother didn't come back.

And it's Chris drinking until he's sobbing on Ashley's floor and feeling like a monster because he just wants Josh to be better, and he knows Josh won't be better, because that's not how it works. It's hiding in her guest room trying to be normal for three days, for a break, to limber up; it's crawling into a bed and feeling guilty because not having to share is nice, and feeling lonely because the pillows are too soft and there's no serrated shoulder bone digging into his chest.

(Chris knows a way he could rectify that, but it's probably poor guest manners to stuff a pillow with kitchen knives. So he holds too tightly, until it's uncomfortable, until he feels like his arms are going to fall off they're so sore, and then finally, finally, he falls asleep.)

It's going home with flowers and ordering pizza and letting Josh pick the movie, even though all Josh wants to watch are documentaries on Netflix about Antarctica and isolation and places that make Chris feel like the world is getting bleaker. But Josh eats it up because the overdramatic sweeping shots and the scripted misery make him feel like he's not an outlier.

Because this is what no one told Chris before he fell in love with Josh: loving someone with damaged brain chemistry is hard. It is hard. And there will be days where you hate them, and wish they would just stop; there will be days when it's hard to bite your tongue and you're tired of reassuring them that yes, you love them, yes, you adore them, yes, you will stay with them, no, they're not annoying you.

And it is hard. There are days where he hates Josh, and wishes he would just stop; and there are days when he has to bite his tongue because he's tired of reassuring Josh. And there are days where he feels selfish and needy and he wants the reassurance.

He wants to be weak, too.

But that's not fair to Josh. Because Josh loves Chris, but he'd have bit his tongue till it severed, bled, till he swallowed it; he'd have wasted away and let Josh have Ashley or Sam or someone else, someone stable and normal and clean. It's not fair because Josh didn't come to Chris during a party to confess his love, slurring his words; Josh wasn't the one with his arms around Chris while Chris rode him. Josh wasn't the one caressing Chris' cheek in the morning telling him how beautiful he was and how sweet and how perfect.

Josh wasn't the one promising _forever_. That was Chris. That was Chris in a chair with his pants around his ankles and Josh riding him and that was _Chris_. Chris wanted this, too. Chris initiated this. And it's not pride pinning him down, because this is the Josh and Josh deserves better than to be someone's trophy of gratification. And for all that Chris will hate himself, for the weekends spent at Ashley's every so often leaving Matt and Jess to dole out Josh's pills and bandage Josh's cuts and tuck Josh into bed, for all of his failings -

Chris _loves_ him.

And love can't fix Josh. It can't make him better. It can't make his hallucinations and his panic attacks and his breakdowns just disappear. Chris knows it won't. He doesn't mind. He just wants Josh, and whatever floats their way in between, he'll learn to deal with it.

Because this is loving Josh:

Coffee and bacon at 2 am, falling asleep to a feature about McMurdo, with Josh tucked into Chris' side and clinging to him like the world won't fall apart. It's Josh wrapped in a blanket playing Dragon Age and telling Chris about his elf; it's lazy afternoon sex, slow and sweet and leaving bites on Josh's hips and watching him lovingly stroke them later when he's cooking dinner. It's Josh with a DS in Chris' lap as Chris tries to play Skyrim and not get involved in Josh's town in Animal Crossing. It's afternoon naps, showering together, Josh in Chris' sweaters singing to the radio and looking like someone took the stars and the ocean and the feeling of coming home and folded them into a person.

This is loving Josh. And Chris would take this over anything else, any day of the week.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i am on a slow, awful descent at http://mtblackwood.tumblr.com/


End file.
